Spain’s national broadcaster on Thursday rejected Austria’s attempts to seek a compromise that would allow Israel to compete in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, and reiterated its threat to boycott the event.
RTVE became the first broadcaster to announce that it does not believe that proposed rule changes for the May 2026 musical event are enough.
RTVE President José Pablo López during a meeting with lawmakers stressed that the public broadcaster’s position “remains unchanged.”
“Israel’s presence is untenable,” the media executive told members of the Joint Parliamentary Control Committee of the Corporation, which oversees RTVE‘s activities. “We are talking about a genocide in Gaza, and that Eurovision is a contest, but human rights are not a contest.”
López also claimed that the Jewish state “has broken the rules and has not been sanctioned for at least the last two years,” and that new rules announced by the European Broadcasting Union were not sufficient.
“Any other country that had engaged in this practice would have been sanctioned,” he charged, accusing subsequent Israeli participants of breaching rules that seek to safeguard the neutrality of the contest.
Its board of directors voted in September that should Israel be allowed to participate in the May 12-16 event, it would boycott the Song Contest.
Austria’s public broadcaster said on Nov. 18 it hoped a compromise could be reached regarding the Jewish state’s participation in the musical extravaganza before the matter is put to a vote this week.
ORF Director-General Roland Weissmann said that Vienna wants Israel to participate, rejecting objections and boycott threats by broadcasters of five countries: Spain, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia.
The EBU in October postponed the vote, which was initially planned for November, on whether Israel will be allowed to compete in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Instead, the topic will be part of the EBU’s regular General Assembly, which is scheduled for Dec. 4–5.
According to Austrian outlet Der Standard, the decision to postpone the vote was made “in light of recent developments in the Middle East,” in a reference to the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza that went into effect on Oct. 10, ending over two years of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
The contest in Basel, Switzerland, this year and Malmö, Sweden, in 2024 were accompanied by massive anti-Israel protests over the war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, which was started by a Hamas-led cross-border invasion and massacre in Israel’s south on Oct. 7, 2023.
